Solved Backup Software suggestions other than ACRONIS

tinmar49 · Sep 26, 2021

Macrium Reflect works from within Windows, but you do have to register. I normally use Mini Tool Partition Manager 10 free, minimum bother downloading, but some things such as cloning Windows to another disk require a restart.

cereberus · Sep 26, 2021

tinmar49 said:
Macrium Reflect works from within Windows, but you do have to register. I normally use Mini Tool Partition Manager 10 free, minimum bother downloading, but some things such as cloning Windows to another disk require a restart.

No you do not need to register.

Steve C · Sep 27, 2021

Look no further than Macrium Reflect. The free version is fine for most people. I regard Acronis products as poorly engineered and supported.

Stigg · Sep 27, 2021

I still cannot believe that there are still people leaving Acronis.
I thought that they would have all left years ago. Many years ago.

24c · Sep 27, 2021

Stigg said:
I still cannot believe that there are still people leaving Acronis.
I thought that they would have all left years ago. Many years ago.

Exit roads were probably overcrowded -

spapakons · Sep 27, 2021

Another advantage of Macrium Reflect is that you can omit some partitions (like the OEM backup/restore partition in a laptop) if you cannot exactly fit the disk on the target. Acronis allows to omit some folders before cloning, but I never managed to make that work.

Bree · Sep 27, 2021

tinmar49 said:
Macrium Reflect works from within Windows, but you do have to register.

Registration is optional if you install Reflect Free for home use. You are offered the choice of Reflect Free for home use or commercial use (Free is licenced for commercial use too). Only if you choose commercial use is registration required.

24c · Sep 27, 2021

Discovered I had a license, 2 in fact, for MR.
Installed it on my desktop, set it up, backed up the OS and Files drives separately, made a rescue USB, and used the USB to restore the OS backup.

Anxious to see how it works going forward - thanks for the suggestion all.

pparks1 · Sep 27, 2021

I'm also a Macrium reflect user, and about 2 weeks ago they were running a special and I purchased the 4 pack for my home setup. So, now a paid Macrium user. It's a great application.

24c · Sep 27, 2021

pparks1 said:
I'm also a Macrium reflect user, and about 2 weeks ago they were running a special and I purchased the 4 pack for my home setup. So, now a paid Macrium user. It's a great application.

I am now a paid user - upgraded both 7 licenses to 8 - one on desktop - one waiting for laptop -didn't take me long to see the light

OliverJia · Sep 27, 2021

Stigg said:
I still cannot believe that there are still people leaving Acronis.
I thought that they would have all left years ago. Many years ago.

Well, Acronis may be a monster installing it in live Windows, but if you only use the boot ISO and do offline disk imaging, Acronis WinPE version is still the best in terms of speed and compression ratio. And it never let me down in more than 15 years of using it. It's still my #1 disk imaging app since I only use its WinPE version for offline disk imaging. The other two on my list is Terabyte Image for Windows and Active DiskImage. R-Drive DiskImage and Drive Snapshot is not bad either. All these have superb reliability for me over years.

cereberus · Sep 27, 2021

OliverJia said:
Well, Acronis may be a monster installing it in live Windows, but if you only use the boot ISO and do offline disk imaging, Acronis WinPE version is still the best in terms of speed and compression ratio. And it never let me down in more than 15 years of using it. It's still my #1 disk imaging app since I only use its WinPE version for offline disk imaging. The other two on my list is Terabyte Image for Windows and Active DiskImage. R-Drive DiskImage and Drive Snapshot is not bad either. All these have superb reliability for me over years.

Well I tested terabyte the other day and it was marginally faster than Macrium Reflect.

If you only do offline disk imaging (rather pointless these days), then you could use ffu built into Windows (newish feature) and thT is really fast.

jimbo45 · Sep 29, 2021

Hi there
For disk imaging (I assume "cloning") - easiest by far and it's been around for ever -- doesn't need any "pre partitioning" either -- simply any Linux distro and run dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb bs=2048M status=progress where /dev/sda and /dev/sdb are the source and target disks.

Offline Disk imaging IMO isn't pointless as imaging a "running" OS can cause all sorts of problems - especially if its got users accessing "distributed databases". You get away with it in Windows as that's essentially a "Single user system" and the OS partition can be "locked" while the image is being taken - but I wouldn't risk it on a Server for instance. With these systems logs / checkpoints etc are usually taken every so often while the OS is running and if a restore needs to be done it's restored from the last restore plus a replay of the logs.

For normal Windows backups etc Macrium is fine - and particularly viBoot is a great feature too.

Cheers
jimbo

spapakons · Sep 29, 2021

Cloning is not pointless. I am a computer technician and among others I upgrade old computers and laptops. In the majority of cases just replacing the mechanical hard disk with an SSD makes a huge difference. In order for the customer to use the computer as fast as possible without any difficulty I always try to clone the old disk first, rather than do a clean installation of Windows and start from scratch. I mostly use Acronis Rescue Disc for that or Macrium Reflect running from Strelec (a variety of WinPE). The clone usually takes less than an hour and the customer can seamlessly benefit from the faster SSD speed without the inconvenience of a new installation.

Bree · Sep 29, 2021

jimbo45 said:
imaging a "running" OS can cause all sorts of problems - especially if its got users accessing "distributed databases".

For online imaging of such systems you'd need Macrium Reflect Server Plus edition.

Exchange Mailbox Restore (Granular Recovery)

Backup your entire physical or virtual Server to a single compressed image file

Windows event logging

SQL continuous backup

Full SQL & Exchange Server backup & recovery

jimbo45 · Sep 29, 2021

Bree said:
For online imaging of such systems you'd need Macrium Reflect Server Plus edition.

Hi there

Agreed --was just pointing out that cloning and imaging "Offline" isn't pointless in all cases/.
Cheers
jimbo

cereberus · Sep 29, 2021

jimbo45 said:
Hi there
For disk imaging (I assume "cloning") - easiest by far and it's been around for ever -- doesn't need any "pre partitioning" either -- simply any Linux distro and run dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb bs=2048M status=progress where /dev/sda and /dev/sdb are the source and target disks.

Offline Disk imaging IMO isn't pointless as imaging a "running" OS can cause all sorts of problems - especially if its got users accessing "distributed databases". You get away with it in Windows as that's essentially a "Single user system" and the OS partition can be "locked" while the image is being taken - but I wouldn't risk it on a Server for instance. With these systems logs / checkpoints etc are usually taken every so often while the OS is running and if a restore needs to be done it's restored from the last restore plus a replay of the logs.

For normal Windows backups etc Macrium is fine - and particularly viBoot is a great feature too.

Cheers
jimbo

Sorry "Easiest by far" is just not true. I know you are a Linux expert but most of us would not even know how to begin to clone using Linux, and why would we when there are loads of Windows tools to do the job. If you want a simple command line solution - check out FFU.

winjer · Oct 6, 2021

I was under the impression that Macrium can not backup files, just drives. If it can backup files (Like "Documents"), how do I do that?

LeLibran · Oct 6, 2021

Try the User Guide: Macrium Reflect v8.0 User Guide

Bree · Oct 6, 2021

winjer said:
I was under the impression that Macrium can not backup files, just drives. If it can backup files (Like "Documents"), how do I do that?

File & Folder backups is a Premium feature. It's not enabled in Reflect Free, but if you try to use it in your Reflect Free then it will offer you a 30 day trial of the Premium features. If you want to keep using them after the trial ends then purchase Macrium, if you don't then your Reflect will revert to the Free edition. The Free edition will be able to restore any backups you made using Premium features, just won't be able to make any new File & Folder backups.